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of ecological thinking into a political force that can advocate for actual
legislation and practical, real-world solutions.
And how, exactly, might we do so? So far, the major activist strategies
have not worked. Popularizing climate change science only goes so far,
since a good share of the public is dogmatically commited to a “skepti-
cal” stance. A more overt atempt to educate the public would only be
perceived as condescending or worse. Direct political action on climate
change has tended to follow the two tracks familiar within American
activist traditions: either it uses the tactics of reformist pressure poli-
tics, which ultimately relies on fundraising and lobbying Congress, or of
decentralized, community-centered activism. But both of these efforts
have failed and will continue to fail. Lobbying Congress has gradually
built support for action, but not enough to get a strong bill through a
Democratic House, much less a Democratic Senate. Many activists, hav-
ing given up on federal leadership, have put their energy into organizing
local efforts; such efforts have led to good results, especially in city, state,
and regional compacts to reduce emissions. But ultimately none of these
local efforts is enough; without concerted, tough federal action, we will
simply not reduce our emissions as greatly as we must.
What political strategy is available to us that we have not tried?
Perhaps it is worth mentioning in passing that the moral case for violent
intervention is strong. If we can justify a nationalist revolt for liberty,
as our ancestors did, or a war to defeat fascism, we can easily defend an
intervention to save the life of the entire biosphere, whose decline repre-
sents a threat on a far greater scale than any crisis in the past. The murder
of tens of millions of people during World War II pales in comparison to
the potential harm to more than seven
billion
people on the planet in the
coming decades.
91
Yet even discussing the possibility of resorting to violence seems to go
too far; by now, in developed countries the mere hint of violent revolu-
tion is enough to delegitimize any movement for change. As a result, in
the postwar era, the United States has evolved a gentler alternative to vio-
lent social change, one that fits the gradualist pace of American politics:
the massive, nonviolent rally in Washington to make specific demands
for action. Perhaps the key event in this regard is the civil rights march
in August, 1963, when Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous “I have
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